


Straight and Narrow

by veronamay



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Angst, Character of Color, Early Work, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-12
Updated: 2003-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veronamay/pseuds/veronamay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anji wants to go home.  Fitz wants to go adventuring.  The Doctor wants to keep them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Straight and Narrow

**Author's Note:**

> _Huge_ thanks are due to [](http://bluecrane.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluecrane**](http://bluecrane.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading this story, which turned out to be a helluva lot more trouble than I thought it would. Also, many thanks to [](http://charliequinn.livejournal.com/profile)[**charliequinn**](http://charliequinn.livejournal.com/) for the read-throughs and the squeeing.
> 
> Spoilers for "Time Zero" and the Sabbath arc generally.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Anji's voice broke. She sounded on the edge of tears. "How plainly do I have to say it? I. Can't. Do this. Anymore. I want to go _home_."

The Doctor stood unresponsive at the console, apparently not even listening. Anji stared at him.

"Right. Well, that's great. Thanks a lot, Doctor. I really appreciate your understanding, not to mention your co-operation. So much for your _promises_!"

She flung the words at him and ran out of the room, leaving an uncomfortable silence in her wake. Fitz stared after her for a second, then switched his gaze to the Doctor, who continued to stand there as though nothing was wrong.

"Doctor..."

The Doctor ignored him too, flicking switches and turning dials in his usual random manner. Fitz thought it might have been a more effective diversion if they were actually in flight instead of cooling their heels in a corner of the vortex.

This wasn't right. Anji deserved better than this indifference after all they'd put her through. It hadn't been her choice to join them, after all, and it wasn't fair to keep her here when all she wanted was to go home. And it wasn't like the Doctor at all, to pay so little heed to his companions' needs. Something was definitely up.

He grabbed the Doctor's shoulder, intending to turn him around. "Hey, come on--"

_Whack. Thud._ "Ow!"

Fitz looked at the ceiling from his new vantage point on the floor. He wasn't hurt -- the TARDIS had actually cushioned the impact for once -- but the shock he felt was worse than pain. Bloody hell. _Talk about a hair trigger..._

The Doctor was beside him in a second. He looked simultaneously horrified and sympathetic. "Are you all right?"

Fitz sat up. "I'm fine." _Unlike some people I could name. What on earth is going on?_

"I'm so _sorry_ ," the Doctor said, sounding more upset than Fitz had heard him in a long time. "I didn't mean..."

Fitz looked more closely at him and saw he really was upset, and about more than just tossing Fitz halfway across the room. "You can't keep doing this, Doctor," he said.

The Doctor straightened up. "Knocking you to the ground? I can't recall ever doing that before -- well, not without a life-threatening reason, and you can't blame me for that. Not every time, anyway. Besides, I just said I was sorry."

Fitz shook his head. "Never mind that. You know bloody well what I mean. You're hiding something, and it's starting to eat at you. This behaviour isn't like you. Why won't you stop mucking about and take Anji home?"

The Doctor feigned interest in a loose thread on his cuff. The silence stretched into minutes.

"Doctor, you can't avoid it anymore, if that's what you're thinking," Fitz said finally. "She wants to leave, and no matter how hard you try she's not going to change her mind. You have to let her go. We both do."

The Doctor looked up then, his eyes full of sorrow and anger and pain, and Fitz drew back despite himself. "You know something?" the Doctor said quietly. "I'm getting very tired of letting people go."

Before Fitz could draw breath to speak, he was on his feet and heading for the library alcove. Fitz was left sitting square on his arse in the middle of the room, totally confused.

"Well," he said to the console, "that was fun."

* * *  


  
Anji looked up and sighed as Fitz appeared in her doorway. "Oh, let me guess -- you're here to talk me round, right?"

Fitz looked hurt. He crossed his arms defensively and she felt a momentary pang of guilt. It wasn't his fault the Doctor was being so difficult; she shouldn't take it out on him. True, Fitz and the Doctor were like peas in a pod, dragging her into one ridiculous situation after another, always backing each other up, egging each other on until they all ended up in yet another prison on some misbegotten world. Familiarity had taught her to be suspicious first and apologetic later. But the Doctor's refusal to return her to 2001 had nothing to do with Fitz, she was sure. He was on her side, in this at least.

"Actually, no," Fitz said. "He's gone off somewhere, I don't know where. I wanted to talk to you about something else."

"About what?"

He came in and sprawled on the floor, hands picking restlessly at the blankets on her bed. "I'm worried about him. Really worried, about more than his hearts -- heart. He's changed so much since I knew him before, and it's -- weird." He looked up. "He's not acting like himself. I've never seen him like this. He's saying stuff that he shouldn't -- like just now after you left, he said he was sick of people always leaving him. But he's lost his memory, so how would he know?"

"He's not human," she pointed out -- and God, it was still a kick to realise that. "Who knows how his mind works? Maybe whatever Sabbath did when he--when the Doctor lost his heart--has started up something else inside him. Maybe he's coming out of it, whatever his condition is. He could wake up tomorrow and remember everything."

"God, I hope not," Fitz muttered.

Anji frowned. "Why not?"

He sighed. "I'm scared of what that would do to him. I don't even remember it clearly, but I _do_ remember being scared to holy hell - and seeing _him_ look as scared as I felt. God only knows what's happened to him since then, but I don't think it was good. He's spent the last hundred years half insane, probably, and since we met up again -- well, he's not exactly stable, is he? Getting a heap of traumatic memories back all at once is not the best thing I can think of to happen to him."

_Surely that's exaggerating things a bit_ , she thought. But when she looked at what she knew of the Doctor -- well, maybe Fitz had a point. Surely he hadn't always been so erratic? But then, if these memories were as dangerous as Fitz said they were ....

_Oh, I don't know. Christ, who_ does _know? There's no-one left to tell us whether he's completely bonkers or just your usual run-of-the-mill Time Lord renegade, if what Fitz says about them all being dead is true._

"Why are you telling me all this? Shouldn't you be talking to him?" she asked. She almost added, "Does it really matter that much?" --But that was a bit harsh. Besides, she didn't really mean that. She did care, after all. She just couldn't imagine the Doctor falling apart so completely -- though Fitz obviously could.

"I'm going to look for him in a minute." He looked hesitant. "I just wanted to ask you a favour first."

"Oh, no. No way. Don't even think about asking me to stay, Fitz," she warned. "I can't do it -- I don't _want_ to, all right? And I don't mean that the way it sounds. It's been great, really - except for all the captures and the near-death experiences, which I really could've done without. I just want to go home. I want to go to sleep in my own bed, knowing that's where and when I'll be when I wake up in the morning. I want my life to be _normal_ again."

Fitz opened his mouth as though to argue, then nodded.

"Yeah, okay. I get that," he said, flashing a brief smile. "For the record, though, I think you're off your rocker."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Pot, meet kettle. You've been with him _how_ long? I'd be a bit careful about casting aspersions on other people's mental states if I were you."

He looked affronted. "That's different."

"How so?" she challenged. "I bet you had the same doubts as me once or twice."

He didn't speak for a second, obviously thinking it over. Anji was more curious than she wanted to admit, so she kept quiet and waited.

"No," he said at last. "No doubts. Temptations, yes -- there are a lot of pretty women out there who find me irresistible -- but I'm having far too much fun to think about leaving permanently."

Anji was surprised. _Fun? He thinks this is_ fun? She was right; he was just like the Doctor. Was she the only one who'd ever actively wanted to leave?

"Well, more fool you," she tried, but the joke fell flat. Fitz was in deep thought about something, and she felt more than a bit reflective herself. Her time with the Doctor hadn't been all bad, really. She knew a lot more about herself than she had before she met him, and she could handle herself better now in almost any situation. Being chased by human-sized wasps and homicidal alien quintuplets could do that for a person, assuming you lived through the experience. The old adage of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger' seemed to hold true.

"So what's the first thing you'll do when you get back?" Fitz asked after a bit.

She grinned. "Collapse for about a week," she said wryly. " Then I'll have to organise stuff for -- for Dave. Funeral, a memorial ... something."

She was relieved to be able to speak so calmly about it. That was one thing to be grateful for, anyway; her months away from her normal life had allowed her to come to terms with her lover's death. She still missed him, of course, but the ache wasn't so sharp anymore. The memories were still there, and she could think of him with a smile. That was enough.

Fitz looked downcast when she mentioned Dave. Anji hoped he didn't still feel guilty about his death; it wasn't his fault Dave had been caught in a situation none of them could control. They'd none of them had any choice in the matter -- only the Doctor was stupid enough (or brave enough, she couldn't decide which) to argue with someone holding a gun to his head, and he wasn't human. The consequences were vastly different for him.

"I'll miss you, you know."

"Masochist," she replied in a jibing tone, trying to dislodge her melancholy. Then she reached out and touched his shoulder. "I'll miss you, too. Both of you, believe it or not."

He smiled and covered her hand with his, but there was evidently something still on his mind. Anji shrugged; he'd tell her or he wouldn't; she couldn't second-guess him. Maybe it was nothing. He might've just misplaced his favourite guitar pick for all she knew.

Fitz got to his feet. "Are you all right now? I'd better find the Doctor. He was a bit upset before."

She bit back the retort on her tongue; he'd come to her first, so she couldn't claim nobody cared. And he was clearly worried about the Doctor's memory problems, despite his refusal to tell her what they actually were. His claims that he didn't remember the details were flimsy as hell, but she wouldn't push him on it. Maybe it was better to keep it all buried, just in case he was right about the backlash. The last thing they needed was for the Doctor to lose what was left of his mind.

"Go on then. I'm fine," she said. "He's probably forgotten the whole thing by now, though."

Fitz frowned. "I don't think so. Not this time. He threw me across the floor, you know, when I tried to talk to him just now. Accidentally, but still -- he's really not himself these days. But don't worry. I'll keep bugging him until he agrees to take you home. I can be very annoying when I want to be."

He didn't seem all that worried; not about being manhandled, that was. Anji understood that. It was hard to imagine the Doctor deliberately hurting anyone. But sometimes, the level of trust she saw between the Doctor and Fitz unsettled her. She wasn't used to trusting anyone that much. What would happen if one day Fitz's trust got him killed?

She watched him walk to the door and thought that maybe he wouldn't care about his own death, if he was with the Doctor. "You really do love him, don't you?"

He stopped in the doorway for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was low and very serious.

"I'd do anything for him."

It wasn't the answer she'd expected, but he was already gone. And when she thought about it, Anji realised maybe he'd answered more clearly than she'd thought. They'd be just fine without her -- and, she thought, that wasn't a bad thing. It was definitely time to go home.

"Two's company, three's embarrassing, Anji," she said aloud. "Time to start packing."

She was only slightly surprised to find she was whistling as she did it.

* * *

The Doctor wandered through the corridors of the TARDIS, opening doors as they appeared in the walls. Many led to rooms he'd never seen before, or to yet more corridors that faded into a distant hazy blackness, a metaphor for his forsaken memory.

"Oh, very poetic, Doctor," he muttered. "You really should write that down. The universe needs exactly that sort of fifth-class drivel to keep everything spinning."

He closed the door on another of these hallways with a thud, consigning his maudlin thoughts to the abyss of denial. Self-pity was all well and good, but sooner or later you either had to kill yourself or move on. 

He'd had a few moments on the edge of that decision, admittedly, but the all-powerful forces of love and curiosity had kept him going -- love for Miranda, the strange daughter so like himself whom he'd adopted in the seventies; and always, his curiosity about the mysterious note he'd carried since the first day he could remember, the one signed, "Fitz". The name had haunted him for over a hundred years.

The Doctor remembered his reunion with Fitz in the overdone bar he'd called 'St Louis', feeling again the unutterable relief that, however strange his idiosyncrasies, for him this was _normal_. More than anything else, he'd needed that reassurance from someone who knew him from before, otherwise he really would have thought himself insane. But Fitz had accepted him without a word, as though he were absolutely ordinary. He doubted he could ever find the words to tell Fitz what a gift that was. Total acceptance was something he tried to practice, but rarely received; Fitz had simply showered him in it from the first moment they met. For that reason alone if no other, the Doctor was deeply grateful for his company. He couldn't imagine life without Fitz anymore.

Speaking of which ... He felt in his coat pocket for the newspaper clipping and the card he'd secreted there, and then shook his head. Best not to think about the possibility before time. There was no guarantee that he was right, after all. Fitz might not show the slightest interest in going. It could be mere coincidence that his name was connected.

_There's no such thing as coincidence and you know it_ , his mind whispered. The Doctor ignored that too, and walked on.

Another door appeared, this one striking some vague bell of memory; though as usual he couldn't place it. The knob turned easily under his hand, as if the room were inviting him in. It was a bedroom -- a girl's room, by the look of it. The Victorian desk, paired incongruously with a smooth plastic chair; the wardrobe that looked large enough to house a family; the Persian rug that he somehow knew would never lie quite flat on the floor -- it was all _not quite_ familiar. The Doctor took it all in, standing perfectly still on the threshold. He didn't want to move, lest the small fluttering of remembrance in his mind dissolved into nothingness. 

There was a bomber jacket lying on the bed -- black satin, covered in badges and motifs from a hundred different planets. He walked over to it, compelled by an impulse he couldn't explain. It didn't belong in this room, with these furnishings, but he couldn't place it anywhere else. 

The satin was soft and warm to the touch. There was a faint scent in the air; he breathed deeply to capture as much of it as he could. His eyes fluttered closed.

So beautiful.

Beautiful face eyes hair skin love loyalty distrust _Professor_ pain fear _no please don't leave_ \--

He stumbled out of the room, fetching up against the wall of the corridor. His solitary heart beat an uneven tattoo of _ker-thump ker-thump ker-thump_ that he suddenly _hated_.

"Stop it," he said aloud. "Stop. It. Leave me alone!"

He dropped to his knees, hugging himself tightly round the waist. The urge to laugh bubbled up, dying away quickly. That was the problem, he thought. They had left him. Left him entirely alone for a hundred years, and he didn't know why he'd survived. And the best part was, he didn't even know who they were.

"I should be dead. Why aren't I dead?" 

His words echoed in the empty hall. The TARDIS declined to answer.

The Doctor remained where he was for several minutes. The thought came that soon Fitz would be looking for him, and might be upset to find him in this state. He decided this was a reasonable motivation to get up.

There was a corridor in front of him where the featureless wall had been, opposite the bedroom. It was a short tunnel with stone walls, leading to a large iron-bound door. The Doctor knew this room; it held no dangers for him. He entered and climbed the gentle hillside among bright hovering scraps of colour.

It was time to face up to a few things. Anji was right; he should take her home. He'd never intended to leave it this long, only he was very fond of her. He simply didn't want to see her go. She reminded him of someone important - her no-nonsense manner and impatience with melodrama were vaguely familiar. Of course, a lot of things were vaguely familiar now, but still ... 

He sighed. "Stop avoiding it, Doctor. This is getting ridiculous. You could be accused of kidnapping, you know. She's a friend, not a possession."

It wasn't like he'd be alone when she left. Fitz would still be there, and he showed no sign of wanting to go home. Anji had been caught up in their travels entirely by accident; naturally she wanted to go back to her normal life. He would just have to grow up and accept it. People moved on, it was part of life. If the faces he kept seeing were any indication, he'd had more companions than he could easily count. Surely he hadn't been like this every time one of them left?

The clipping and card crumpled in his pocket as he sat down, an irritating reminder of his fears about Fitz. He thought about throwing them away. Fitz would never know, and he wouldn't leave, and perhaps those fears would come to nothing. 

A phrase came to him. _If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours._

He could let Anji go, he thought, but losing Fitz would be something else altogether. That was the real crux of the matter; the risk was so much higher. What if he didn't come back? 

The Doctor was surprised to find just how much he wanted Fitz to stay. Needed, even.

Desired?

No, surely not. Was that it? After all this time?

His mind whispered to him again. _Never say never._

This feeling was much more familiar than the others. Clearly, he'd been avoiding more things than he'd thought.

* * *

He'd be in the butterfly room. He always went there when he was hurt; that was the reason it existed. Fitz went there immediately after talking to Anji. No time like the present, he figured. Pun intended. 

The TARDIS co-operated by taking him to the right door as soon as he rounded the first corner of the hallway outside Anji's room. The old girl must be as worried as he was -- if a machine could be said to worry, that was. Fitz wasn't about to put anything past the TARDIS; she'd patched him back together from a memory. He was sure she knew exactly what was going on.

"How about a clue then, eh?" he muttered, but received no reply. He shrugged and went through the door.

It was a bright, sunny day inside, just warm enough to be comfortable. Fitz climbed the slope and sat down beside the Doctor. The shadow of the huge flutterwing passed briefly over them, stirring up a breeze. 

"So what did you mean back there? About people leaving you, I mean. What's all that about?"

The Doctor was examining a small butterfly with blue and gold stripes which perched on the end of his finger. He seemed not to have heard. Fitz waited patiently, staring at him with no pretence at politeness, until the Doctor sighed and looked up.

"I don't know," he said, his frustration clear to see. "I honestly don't, Fitz -- and I really am sorry for reacting like that." 

"Don't apologise to me -- though Anji would appreciate hearing that, I think." Fitz hesitated. "I just wondered if ... You sounded like -- like you've been remembering things. Is that ..."

"No, not really. Whatever trauma I'm repressing is still neatly tucked away in my mind, and I'm happy to let it stay there. I've learned not to poke at it. This is something else. I'm ... seeing things. Images of people, mostly." He paused, looking a bit sheepish.

"Yes?" Fitz prompted.

"It sounds odd, but ... it happens when I touch certain things. Like clairvoyance, I suppose. I pick something up, and I can see -- well, probably the person it belonged to. It's rather confusing, and it's happening more and more."

This was not good, Fitz thought. One odd recollection could jar a flood of memories about Gallifrey that could render the Doctor in a worse state than before, with less hope of recovery. Fitz knew without actually admitting it that he'd do anything to avoid that happening, even if it meant keeping his friend in mental limbo forever. But what could be causing it now, after all this time?

He saw that the Doctor was watching him, and hoped none of his thoughts were showing on his face. "Do you recognise anyone you see?" he asked casually.

The Doctor did that humming thing that meant he was thinking. "Not _identify_ , as such. There's a sense that I know them, that they're lost to me. Suffice to say I've not regained any pleasant memories of late." He quirked his mouth. "You can guess why I'm not keen to discuss Anji's departure."

This was more serious than Fitz had imagined. He wondered briefly if Compassion or Sam featured in any of those upsetting memories, but then quickly shelved the thought. Their departures weren't pleasant memories for him either.

The Doctor was carefully rummaging in the inside pocket of his coat. "I have to admit," he said quietly, "this has always given me a bit of a turn, even before this sort of thing started happening regularly."

Fitz opened his mouth to ask but closed it again as the Doctor drew out a small, battered slip of paper he'd seen only rarely, but knew intimately. The Doctor handled it as though it were precious. 

The sight brought a lump to Fitz's throat. He swallowed hard against the emotions flooding through him.

"What do you mean, 'a bit of a turn'?"

The Doctor's eyes were on the paper, his face expressionless. "I saw you," he said. "I didn't know it was you then, of course -- but whenever I looked at this, there you were. You and -- someone else, a red-haired girl." 

"Compassion," Fitz said automatically. "She left." Well, it sounded better than, 'She turned into a Type 102 TARDIS and dumped you in the nineteenth century and me in 2001 and took off for greener pastures'. That wasn't exactly the sort of thing the Doctor needed to hear.

The Doctor carefully unfolded the paper as he must have done hundreds of times, mouthing the words written upon it in a strong female hand. Fitz echoed them in his mind. _Meet me in St Louis', 8th February 2001. Fitz._

Their separation had lasted only two days for Fitz; for the Doctor, more than a century. He couldn't imagine what that had been like.

Realisation dawned. "You thought we'd left you. For good."

The Doctor nodded, still staring at the paper. Fitz's stomach dropped, and he felt sick. Guilt replaced all the other feelings flowing through him. To live with that thought for a century....

"It's all right, Fitz." The Doctor's voice was gentle. "There's no need for that."

He discovered a tear sliding down his cheek and wiped it away, clearing his throat. _Lovely. Cry all over him, why don't you?_ "Yeah, okay. But if I had any idea, Doctor, I swear--"

"Well, how could you have?" the Doctor asked reasonably. He shook his head. "Don't worry about it. No harm done."

Fitz wasn't so sure about that; there were lines on the Doctor's face that spoke of pain both old and new. He couldn't imagine why, unless it was because of Anji -- and then he could, and he wanted to kick himself. _Grow a brain, Fitz. You've been prattling on for weeks about having an adventure of your own; what's he supposed to think?_

"It'll be just the two of us then, when Anji goes," he said casually. "Two unnaturally handsome men roaming the universe, looking for hearts to break and worlds to save. Should be fun, don't you think?" _Just in case you were wondering, Doctor - I'm not going anywhere._

The Doctor folded the slip of paper and stowed it away, taking his time like it was a ritual. His hair hid his downturned face. Fitz waited, his heart thumping stupidly fast.

Finally the Doctor looked over at him, and that subtle tightness was gone. 

"That sounds lovely, Fitz. Very nice indeed. Though I'll leave the heartbreaking to you, if you don't mind." He tapped his chest, holding Fitz's gaze. "I don't have one to spare anymore, and this one seems to be taken."

Fitz stopped breathing. He remembered other times he'd seen that look, when it had been a signal that led to things he hardly dared to think of now. Nights of shared warmth and bared skin, of quiet whispers and the rustle of bedsheets, and of waking entwined in the morning. The smell of lavender and rain and cinnamon in his nostrils, mingled with sweat and his own warm musk. A bland, familiar taste lay heavy on his tongue, composed of memory and wanting.

He'd been playing the role of the trusty companion for a long time, but the ache was growing deeper. The Doctor wasn't the only one who had lost something.

He opened his eyes, unaware of having closed them. The Doctor's face was very close. Fitz inhaled slowly, holding that blue gaze, breathing in the familiar scents.

"Perhaps I'll be too busy to do that part either," he said.

The Doctor's hand shook the tiniest bit as he lowered it back to his side. "Perhaps you will." 

He was on his feet in an instant, moving back down the hill. "You'll be busy before we leave Earth again at any rate, if I can hit the right co-ordinates."

Fitz followed him, almost thankful for the change in mood. "Busy doing what?"

"This." The Doctor rummaged in his pockets again and produced a newspaper clipping and what looked like a business card. Fitz recognised the name printed on the card.

"George Williamson," he read, then raised his eyebrows as he scanned the article. "I remember him, but ... an Arctic expedition? Doctor, what is this?"

The Doctor stopped beside the tall unmoving sapling that hid the door. "Just what it says," he said, not looking back. "An expedition. An Earth-bound adventure. Haven't you been saying you want to see something of your own planet before you--"

Fitz looked from the Doctor to the clipping and back again, confused. "Yes, but -- I don't understand. How did you find out about this? How -- what am I supposed to do on an Arctic expedition?"

"Anything. You have a lot of different skills that would come in very useful, Fitz. The important thing is, you wanted to do something memorable, yes? This seemed appropriate, and George will be there." To look after you, his look said, but Fitz let that pass. 

The Doctor watched him intently. "What do you think?"

He hesitated, but he could already feel the first stirrings of excitement in his stomach. He'd gone with George to several lectures while they were in the eighteen-nineties, and the images that rose before his eyes -- snowy mountain peaks, vast frozen glaciers, miles of clean white emptiness -- inspired in him the same anticipation he got from landing on an alien planet.

He grinned. "It sounds marvellous."

The Doctor flashed a brief smile in reply. He kept his face turned away as they re-entered the corridor and headed for the console room. Fitz wondered as he had many times before exactly how many thoughts were whirling in that complicated mind.

"You'll be alone for a bit if I do this," he said suddenly. "Will you be all right?" He wanted to take back the words as soon as he said them. _He just survived a century alone, idiot. You think he's going to fall to pieces the second you leave?_

"Yes, of course," the Doctor said briskly, but the smile he gave Fitz this time seemed forced. "I'm sure I'll be fine."

Fitz looked at him carefully. He wasn't convinced; the Doctor was clearly being affected by these surfacing memories. With Anji and Fitz both suddenly gone -- well, who knew what that would do to his psyche? And what about their own situation? They'd just come to an agreement of sorts, he thought; if he left now, would that ruin their chances of picking up where they'd left off?

The Doctor faced him, his gaze troubled but steady. "Fitz, stop worrying about me. I'll manage without you for a bit. You've said you need to do something for yourself. I can understand that. This is a wonderful chance, and you won't be gone for long. Go and explore, enjoy yourself. I'll nip forward and pick you up the instant you arrive at the North Pole, if you like. Just--" He paused. "Make sure you're there to _be_ picked up, all right?"

Fitz felt his heart thump again. _Try and stop me_ , he thought, but he couldn't say that. He grinned rakishly instead. "Bet your--"

"Yes, all right," the Doctor cut in, but the warmth was back in his smile now, and his look was direct and infinitely more meaningful. "Good."

"Good," Fitz echoed. He blinked and cleared his throat. "Now go and talk to Anji, would you? She was pretty angry. You owe her a bit of grovelling and scraping, if you ask me."

The Doctor had the grace to look shamefaced. "Ah. Yes. Right you are. I'll just, uh ..."

He headed towards the console room. Fitz put out an arm and barred his way.

"Doctor, Anji's room is _that_ way."

"All right, all right. I'm going." The Doctor walked off in the right direction, his steps dragging just the tiniest bit. His voice floated back along the corridor, laced with sarcasm. "Thank goodness I have you to keep me on the straight and narrow, Fitz."

Fitz smiled to himself. "Not bloody likely, Doctor."

END


End file.
